Several people escaped injury when massive trees fell on their homes, vehicles and in their yards.

The Red Cross office in Montgomery County remained without power as of 4:30 p.m. Thursday, said Kathy Thompson, spokeswoman for the Red Cross of the National Capital Area.

‘‘They've been unable to fully assess the damage to homes,” she said. ‘‘We have teams ready to go out and to assist with clean-up kits, heater meals (meals that can be heated without an oven) and water.”

She urged people to call the regional chapter at 703-584-8400.

First snapping branches, then buzzing chainsaws

The growl of chainsaws that sliced through downed trees echoed along Springfield Road in Darnestown on Thursday afternoon.

Randell E. Erdley sounded shaken as he described the massive oak trees that came crashing through the roof of his house, which he planned to sell.

‘‘I was in my lounge chair downstairs when all of a sudden it hit, and I heard this crash, and I didn't know what it was,” Erdley said.

‘‘About one-third of the house is gone. I don't know, it's just impossible to describe,” he added.

He said he recently found a buyer for the house, which he moved into soon after it was built 36 years ago. He isn't sure how the damage will affect the sale, he said.

‘‘The Realtor is dealing with this as best he can” Erdley said.

Workers carefully tugged trees off the buckled roof. Wood paneling dangled from the house, window frames warped and a window shattered.

Work crews wielded chain saws and maneuvered forklifts loaded with logs in yards along the road. Telephone poles tangled in power lines lay along the roadside. Alphonso O. Pitt of Apex Tree Experts estimated it will take three or four days to clear trees and other debris.

Pitt said a homeowner called him shortly after the storm ended and asked for help.

‘‘It looked like Godzilla had been walking down the street with an attitude,” he said.

Happy he was awake

A 92-foot long, 5-foot wide tree destroyed two bedrooms and significantly damaged a house in the 4900 block of Butternut Drive in Aspen Hill.

Mark Perigo, 44, said he is leasing the house and lives there with three other roommates. He called in sick on Wednesday.

He woke up from a nap around 11 a.m. and then went to Silver Spring to check on a job.

A roommate called him at 3:15 p.m. to say a tree had crashed through the house.

‘‘If I'd stayed asleep in that bed, I'd have been dead,” Perigo said. ‘‘It's like God told me to get up and get out of there - like I have an angel or something.”

He added he and his roommates are staying with friends or family. Neighbors bought them tarp and nails and helped them cover the roof. He said they also managed to cut a few branches off the tree.

‘‘I am so grateful to those neighbors,” he said, adding they also provided water and food and offered them places to stay. ‘‘They just rallied around us and I've never seen anything like that in my life.”

Blocked roads

While Takoma Park residents Jeff Williams and Joe Deering sat in Williams' driveway waiting for the rain to pass on Wednesday afternoon, one of their neighbor's trees was struck by lightning.

‘‘I heard a loud bang and I saw remnants of a bluish light,” Deering said, referring to a tree knocking down the power lines. ‘‘It took about 30 seconds. It was like a movie.”

On Thursday afternoon, Takoma Avenue was still closed between Philadelphia and Boston avenues, the whole block was with without electricity, the tree was still blocking both lanes and stray power lines were hanging.

Deering said Takoma Park Police told him the block was ‘‘down on the list” and didn't expect power to return for three or four days. Williams said his house was ‘‘extremely lucky” to not lose power, as all of his neighbors did, but he is still wary of the storm's damage.

‘‘Someone that is walking on the street might pay attention to the tree but not know they are walking beneath power lines and a broken utility pole,” he said.

Kensington resident Carol Placek said three large trees had fallen near her house on Parkwood Drive. The trees, each 80 to 100 feet tall, hit two of her neighbors' houses and fell across a much-used bike path, she said.

She expected officials to remove the trees tomorrow, but hoped county or Park and Planning officials would inspect remaining trees in the neighborhood to avoid future damage.

‘‘The next one is heading for my house,” she said.

'Boggle by candlelight'

Dale Drive in Silver Spring was still closed between Mansfield Road and Deerfield Avenue, with a fallen tree blocking both lanes. Tsenay Serequeberhan, who lives on Mansfield, said most of his neighborhood had lost electricity.

‘‘I hope it comes back soon, otherwise I'll have a whole fridge of rotten food,” Serequeberhan said.

Conversely, Deerfield Avenue resident Bob Bor said he and his wife didn't mind the outage.

‘‘We went out to dinner, then came back and played Boggle by candlelight and went to bed early,” he said.

A fallen tree on a Cedar Avenue property closed the road between Dogwood and Philadelphia avenues in Takoma Park, blocking half the street and some neighboring driveways, leaving that neighborhood without power as well.

Cedar Avenue resident Tom Swift said he was in Washington, D.C., with his mother when the storm hit. Around 5 p.m. when they returned, his daughter called and told about the tree. Swift said he quickly took the items in his freezer to a friend with electricity.

Swift said he wasn't surprised the tree fell and the neighborhood contains many large, old trees that are endangered during any storm.

‘‘We have been expecting the tree to come down for a long time,” he said. ‘‘We expect these things to happen... we moved here because we love the trees.”

Fallen history

A tree that could date back to the 1880s damaged a bedroom and enclosed porch when it fell on a house on North Street in Brookeville.

The basswood tree was probably on the property when the house was built, said Town Commissioner Katherine Farquhar, who lives in the house.

She said she saw the leaves in her yard swirling just before hearing the tree fall.

The tree, which Farquhar estimated to be 7 feet in diameter, crashed onto a part of the house that was added in the 1970s. Farquhar has not been able to assess damage.

In Rockville's Twinbrook community, two 150-year-old oak trees toppled in the backyard of Robert and Selma Simon, crushing their shed and narrowly missing their home.

‘‘It looks like a jungle,” said Karen Bruno, the couple's daughter. ‘‘You can barely see the shed under there. My kids were climbing around in it earlier.”

The trees are each between 4 and 5 feet in diameter and about 100 feet tall. The family estimates the trees are around 150 years old.

Selma Simon said the family has lived in the house for 46 years and had never seen a storm this strong before.

‘‘We're so grateful nobody was hurt,” she said.

In Washington Grove - motto: “A Town Within a Forest“ - several trees had fallen and about 60 percent of the town's 225 homes did not have power as of 5 p.m. Thursday, said Kathy Lehman, town clerk.

One home was damaged by trees, but no one was hurt and the roads - many of which are pedestrian-only - have been cleared.

“Everybody's in pretty good shape considering we live in a forest,“ Lehman said.

Making the best of it

Some of Rockville's recreation facilities reopened when electricity was restored. The Rockville Senior Center is open and the box office at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre is selling tickets, according to Marylou Berg, the city's spokeswoman.

Tonight's concert in Town Square is still on. Folk musicians Cletus Kennelly and Lori Kelley will hit the stage in front of the Rockville Library at 6 p.m.

Peggy Lee, manager at Orient Express in the Blair Shopping Center in downtown Silver Spring, said her store had between 60 and 70 additional customers around dinnertime Wednesday because of local outages.

‘‘The people without power have to eat, so they come to us,” she said.

Staff Writers Joe Beck, Jason Tomassini, Melissa Brachfeld, Nathan Carrick, Contessa Crisostomo, Terri Hogan, Sebastian Montes and Melissa A. Chadwick contributed to this report.